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Friday, 11 August 2017

The Apollo 16 Incident

When the Apollo 16 mission was preparing to return back from the Moon on April 27, 1972 ....

The Apollo 16 Images That Sparked The Debate ......

.... from a command/service module window they filmed about four seconds of video footage, of an object that looked like a UFO.

It was described by later film viewers as looking like "a saucer-shaped object with a dome on top". In fact there is no evidence that the Apollo 16 crew ever thought the film showed anything special at the time. In the film it initially disappears from view, but it later reappeared as the camera pans back. In all it appeared in about 50 frames of the 16mm film.

This of course was later picked up by the UFO and conspiracy theory groups as evidence of aliens observing our tentative first steps in space or that the US government had secret craft already up there.

NASA eventually was forced to deny both these theories and examine the image more closely.

Sadly for all those who love these claims of alien involvement with earth, this examination very quickly offered an alternative to all the wilder theories. In fact they showed rather conclusively that in fact rather than being an unidentified flying object, it was in fact an identifiable object.

The Floodlight Boom (credit NASA).

The enhanced Apollo 16 image (lower left) compared with features of the EVA floodlight/boom from the perspective of a Command/Service Module window (lower right), indicated that the film had simply caught the floodlight/boom from their own command module glinting in the moonlight.

Now I am sure that this evidence will not satisfy the hardcore Ufologists but it'll do for me ....